Things I Hate About Germany, Vol. III: Smokers in the U-Bahn

I hate the a**holes who insist on smoking in underground subway stations.  Even though the whole system is supposed to be smoke-free, at least once a week I find myself trapped underground with someone (usually a middle-aged or older man) smoking and filling the entire station with smoke. (In fairness to Germany, this may be more of a Berlin thing than a nationwide phenomenon.)

Relatedly, I also hate all of the Germans (also mostly older men, although there are plenty of younger ones too) who ride the trains and walk about the city reeking of that lovely combination of cigarette smoke and alcohol breath–perhaps with some B.O. thrown in.  Disgusting.

Knock, Knock, Knockin’ a Bit Harder

Unlike in many American offices, in the German workplace it is customary to keep your door closed at all times while working. This does not signify that you don’t want to be disturbed; it is merely done, or so they tell themselves, so that people can concentrate more effectively on their work. When you want to talk to someone in his or her office, you simply knock and enter.

A few weeks ago, upon knocking and entering the office of the communications manager here, she and her assistant told me they can tell who is about to enter the office based on the nature and loudness of the knock. They knew it was me, they said, because my knock was the softest and most timid of anyone in the building.  While I’d prefer to attribute this to my ambivalence over my work or a lack of comfort with this knocking system than over a general lack of assertiveness or boldness, I resolved on the spot to knock more loudly and firmly from then on.

I have been trying to keep this in mind as a useful metaphor for daily life–knock loudly and make your presence known!

Shocked

I just heard one of my co-workers (an intern in his late 20s) say, by way of complaining about his daily work of registering people for events, that it was like “the Nazis registering the Jews.”  Usually the Germans are so careful about openly saying anything that could be perceived as insensitive to Jews or to the memory of the Holocaust.  I don’t know how to react to this.

Those Violent East Germans

One of the art house theaters in Berlin is putting on a Clint Eastwood festival this month, and on the spur of the moment one night last week I went to see Million Dollar Baby. I had never really had much interest in the picture, since I figured as a boxing film it would be a) full of sports cliches, and b) violent and unpleasant. But it did win the Best Picture Oscar a few years ago, and the deal was sealed when I read in a synopsis that its heroine, played by Hilary Swank (whose performance in Boys Don’t Cry was incredible), was supposed to be 31 years old, just like me. Maybe it would be the inspiring story of a 31-year-old who makes something of herself, I suspected.

It took me a while to get into the picture–the dialogue seemed pretty lame at first, and Eastwood frankly seemed like a bad actor. (I have only seen him in a few other movies, a long time ago, like Unforgiven.) But I became quickly engrossed in the story. In case you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read the rest of this post below the stars (SPOILER WARNING!). But do go rent this movie. It is exceptionally well-made, and though simple and direct in plot and dialogue, ends up as one of the most powerful, thought-provoking films I have ever seen.

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For those who have seen it, you will no doubt recall the horror of the climactic scene between Hilary Swank’s character and her cruel-beyond-cruel East German opponent. Watching the film in Berlin, I found it a little odd that the boxer was supposed to be from East Germany. First, I thought (although maybe I missed some signs to the contrary) the movie was supposed to take place in the present, when East Germany was no longer around. Second, the boxer was seemingly of African or at least mixed descent–not your typical German look.

What was going on here? Which typical American stereotypes of Germans (and particularly East Germans) did the author of the story behind the movie, or of the screenplay (if this was not in the original story), have in mind when making the villain East German? That (East) Germans are rough and have no respect for rules? That they have a wild, even insane streak? That they are somehow less than human?

These stereotypes could have their roots in images of Germans as Nazis, or simply in outdated fantasies constructed on the other side of the Iron Curtain about those strangers in the East. Regardless, I can imagine many of the people I have met who grew up on the Eastern side of the wall would be offended by their association in the film with such wanton, sadistic barbarism.

When Are You No Longer an American?

I just read a description of a professor who is a “U.S. sociologist who has been living and working in Germany since 1964.” How are you still an American sociologist when you have lived in a foreign country for the last 44 years? The professor in question was born in New Jersey and graduated from Harvard, and then, at age 23, moved abroad. So she is American-born and American-educated, and I assume still an American citizen, but still, is she American?  She has lived outside the U.S. for two-thirds of her life.

But what does it mean to be American, anyway? Is it a matter of where you are, or how you think? Does it matter if you maintain an apartment in New York, say, and visit twice a year? Does it depend on whether you still read American newspapers, or vote? Is it strictly a matter of self-definition, or of state definition (i.e. citizenship), or of how others perceive us?

This is an issue that has been concerning me as well this year, in a personal way. People ask me dann und wann (from time to time) for my opinion of the election or other pressing U.S. issues, “as an American.” While I think I have a better claim to that label than the aforementioned professor, I haven’t set foot in the States for almost six months. This leads me to wonder whether I still claim to speak on behalf of my country (as much as I ever could speak for 300 million people). Does there come a point at which you are no longer meaningfully a representative of your nation, even if you can call yourself (on any basis you choose) a national of that country? Does any such authority just gradually fade away, the longer you live abroad? Or can I speak as an American, as long as I have an American passport?

(Long) German Word of the Day: Grenznachbarschaftliche

Grenznachbarschaftliche – a convenient word for (I think) “concerning neighboring countries”!

Em…

I have found it quite surprising that even little utterances that barely qualify as words are different in German. For example, instead of a phone “beeping,” Germans say “peep.” Instead of “umm…” (i.e. while thinking of what to say), Germans say, “em…” Instead of “oops!” when making a mistake, Germans often say, “Ach so!” My assumption would have been that such utterances were universal, but actually, I was just projecting my English-centrism!

London’s Many Tongues

I’m in London at the moment for a conference on constitutional law and the regulatory state. London always makes me feel alive–the streets are so much more full of life than in Berlin, or even than in New York. One person I met at the conference, a young Brazilian lawyer who works for the Senate in São Paolo but is here in London doing a master’s degree, told me his favorite thing about the city is hearing so many languages on the streets. I noted that you could hear that in New York, too, but he said he notices it much more here.

When the conference adjourned, and I was back on the streets, my ears perked up and I started paying special attention to what everyone else was saying. Indeed, probably not more than half of what I overheard on Oxford Street on a Friday afternoon was English. There was a ton of French and German, some Italian, some Thai (I think), Arabic… New Yorkers think the Big Apple is the world’s most international city, but you don’t often hear so many tongues walking down Broadway (tour groups excepted). The Brazilian lawyer argued that this was, at least in part, because in New York there has been more successful economic and social integration of immigrant communities than in London–the result being that more people can and do speak English regularly, if not exclusively. In London, he said, immigrants remain generally less well-off and more confined to their ethnic and lingustic communities.

This may be the case, and if so, it would seem that immigrants have a better chance at success in the U.S. But it is nonetheless quite special to hear all the languages of the world here. While New York has the United Nations and rivals or tops London in diversity, I get more of the great feeling here that I am in the center of, or at least a giant microcosm of, the whole world.

German Word of the Day: Zügig

My new favorite word is zügig.  I assume this word comes from the German word for train, zug, and thus means roughly, to be like a train.  Translations of zügig include easy, efficient, free and uninterrupted.

I discovered this word in the context of someone touting his own work style in an application letter.  What a nice metaphor! I could stand to be a lot more zügig myself.  Could picturing a train help me get things done?

Kebab Haus: Bringing People Together

I’ve been going for lunch two or three times a week to a tiny döner kebab place called “Kebab Haus” in Berlin-Wannsee. Today was the first time that one of the guys behind the counter talked to me. As I ordered my falafel, he could tell I was not a native German speaker, and started speaking to me in English. When my sandwich was ready he handed it to me and said, “Guten Appetit…. I don’t know how you say that in English.” I sat there eating and reading a print-out of a New York Times article, debating whether to engage him in conversation and discuss the fact that we don’t really have a phrase for that in English. (I have had this conversation with other people in Germany at least twice since coming over here.) In the meantime, the man and his co-worker briefly discussed the question, settling on “Enjoy your meal” as the most likely phrase.

A few minutes later, the man’s co-worker went out for a cigarette and the guy behind the counter walked over to me. “We are alone now,” he said, in English. I was a little freaked out. But he continued: “So, how do you say ‘Guten Appetit‘ in English”? It was as if he had been reading my mind! In German, I said that we sometimes use the French (“Bon Appetit”), but that people might indeed say, simply, “Enjoy” or something similar. He asked me where I was from and whether I was an economist–apparently that’s what I looked like. When I said I was a lawyer, he was confused. Once you’re a lawyer, aren’t you done studying? he asked. Can’t you just keep working? I said that was true, but I chose to come abroad for a fellowship. I asked where he was from, in turn, and he said, “You can’t tell? I am Turkish!”

A young Middle Eastern man with a thick beard and moustache then walked in. (This guy must have a hard time with, say, airport security; he looked straight out of terrorist central casting.) The Turkish guy asked what he wanted, in German. But the man did not answer. “Turkish? Arabic?” the guy behind the counter offered. The bearded customer shook his head. “English?” was the next suggestion. “Yes, I know some English,” the customer replied in a fairly hushed voice. The owner asked where he was from, and the bearded man said, “Afghanistan.” (Not really surprising, given his look.)

What a moment, I thought. Here in Germany, a Turkish guy is talking to an Afghan guy in English, while an American guy sits there and listens.

The Turkish guy asked the Afghani what kind of sauce he wanted on his sandwich. Garlic? Chili? Herb? The Afghani guy said only, “the red one,” and my new friend behind the counter nodded. “Afghanis like hot food!” I don’t know how the Afghani reacted, since I wasn’t looking at him, but he said, “I need to know more German.” So the Turkish guy told him the name for each sauce in German. “Knoblauch, scharf, krauter,” he recited. “Scharf is German for hot, spicy. You want me to write the words down on a card for you?” I guess the Afghani shook his head, because he was out the door with his sandwich in hand a minute later.

A few German customers came in and ordered doner kebabs to go. I got up to pay for my falafel. “You know, you speak better German than my father, and he’s been here 30 years,” the Turkish guy said to me (in German). “Danke schön,” I said with a little smile, and headed back to the office.